Ralph’s impending unemployment has been hard on everyone in the family. However, it has helped us to refocus our priorities, to reassess what is important.

On the way home from church tonight, Patty shared with me that she often has felt that her father wasn’t always there for her. That she sometimes sought other father figures. In part because Ralph went to bed around 8:00 p.m. every night because he worked from 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 pm every day for at least 15 years…since she was five years old. He was often exhausted.

She said, “I realize now that he sacrificed himself for us. He worked hard to provide the things that we need. So many fathers are concerned about other things, but his chief concern was us.”

12 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2